So, as you can probably see, my journal is not entirely friends-only. It's about 40% public, 50% friends-only, and 10% private. I'll usually only add people I've been talking to in communities a lot, so if we've been chatting and you want to add me, send me a request. :)

Since I'm a huge book nerd and I used to love keeping track of what I'd read, I decided to make a list on here. Dunno why I didn't do it before now. I'll add to it until it starts to get too full and too hard to follow, and then I'll start a new one (hence the empty date in the subject). I'm starting it 3/11 because I read some awesome books in the last few months that I want to include on here, but I don't remember all of the books that I've read between 3/11 and today (6/11), so this isn't retroactively comprehensive. I would usually just list them chronologically as I read them, but in the interest of making them easy to find I will list them here alphabetically by title. With little stars as ratings (on a scale of 1-5). Anyway, the books!

Non-Fiction:Chinese Cinderella ***Cinderella Ate My Daughter ***The Great Typo Hunt- Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson ****The Lost City of Z- David Grann ****Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil- John Berendt ***Sex With Kings- Eleanor Herman **

I finally broke down and created a Tumblr. The background is boring for now until I figure out what else I want to do with it. I mostly reblog a bunch of Renaissance, Victorian and Rococo costume photos, pictures of cute plushies, and cool architecture. I've only posted a couple of my own photos so far. More to come. But I figure I need some followers or something.

Tags:

So, in my time dealing with the magazines at work--taking down old stuff, putting up new stuff, straightening at the end of the night, reshelving, etc.--the headlines on the tabloids like Star, Us Weekly, and In Touch catch my eye because of their annoying fonts and ridiculous accusations. One trend that I've noticed that is really starting to bother me is the tabloids' relentless, vicious, and obsessive scrutiny of celebs and their weight. One week they'll be calling someone too fat, and the following week they'll be calling someone too skinny. Last night I was flipping through a copy of People magazine that someone had left in the break room that had an article discussing whether LeAnn Rimes was too thin, when to all appearances (at least in the published photos) she has a healthy, muscular body. Star magazine's current issue features seven different celebrities on the cover that they are accusing of being too thin. Yet a few weeks ago one of the tabloids had an article about Sara Rue and how wonderful it was that she had lost a whole bunch of weight. And does any one remember when photos were published of Tyra Banks in a bikini and they called her fat? Or Jessica Simpson and the "fat mom jeans" issue? One that really got to me was the week a tabloid accused Kate Middleton of being too thin, and the following week a diet magazine had an article proclaiming "Get thin like Kate by following her pre-wedding diet!" WHICH IS IT!? Is she too thin, or is her body desirable? What is this ideal weight that celebrities are supposed to be maintaining that rides the thin line between tabloids accusing them of being too fat and accusing them of having an eating disorder? I find it infuriating because from one week to another the tabloids can't even agree with themselves about what a healthy, desirable weight is. And I don't even think they know what it is. They're just sensationalizing any change in a celeb's weight, just to have something to publish and the end result is that the celebs are under undue scrutiny about every pound, and therefore women in general feel like they need to scrutinize their own bodies for every pound. However, we don't even know what we're supposed to be because the tabloids are constantly telling us something different. Are we supposed to be stick thin? Are we supposed to have curves? Are we supposed to be soft and toned? Are we supposed to be a little muscular? So not only are we left with a poor body image, we don't even know how we're supposed to change our bodies to "improve" them.

The more I see of tabloids the more pointless and demoralizing I find them. I wish we could get rid of them all together. But at the end of the night at the book store, guess what I have the most to reshelve? Because while few people want to actually buy tabloids, they will come into a store, grab the entire range of celeb gossip magazines, and sit in a chair for a few hours giggling over who said/did what or who. I complain that I want to set the newsstand on fire at least once a week because I'm frustrated with trying to straighten up the absolute disaster area that they become at the end of the day, but tabloids are becoming a close second in the List of Reasons to Set the Newsstand On Fire.